


Blood in Our Hearts, Blood on Our Hands

by pdoesart (elphie_jolras)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Fenris is broody, Multi, Varric calls Hawke a shit which is probably deserved, fenris is very much in loooove with hawke, fenris shows up and is upset, goddamn spiders, hawke can't catch a break, hawke is a woobie, hawke thinks that feathers are dumb but she wears them anyway, it's angst i'm sorry, it's sad i'm sorry but not really, justice is an asshole, mentions of cullen/trevelyan, past fenris/hawke, sad times in the fade, solas and trevelyan are bros, this doesn't go with my other story it's a completely different verse, varric is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 00:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4458800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elphie_jolras/pseuds/pdoesart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Anders blows up the Chantry, Hawke strikes him down.  And then she has to live with that decision.</p><p>"She has been drowned in blood by the man she loved, but now it is time for her to swim for the surface and fight for breath."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood in Our Hearts, Blood on Our Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song "Justice and Mercy" by Flyleaf.
> 
> This is angsty, but I'm not sorry.

Anders sits in front of her, his head bowed, and she doesn’t know what to do.  The voice of justice within her – _hah, justice –_ demands his death, demands that he pay for the innocent lives he extinguished when he blew up the Chantry.  The Champion part of her says that he must pay, but all she sees is the man she loves.  She can’t see him as the monster others do, no matter how hard she tries.

“Anders…” she begins, ready to say _stay with me, stay with me and repent, I’ll forgive you_.  He lifts his head a little, and she has to fight the urge to brush his hair back behind his ears like she always does.

“Do it,” he says listlessly, and his tone brings to the forefront of her mind the old nightmares that have haunted her for years, ever since she began to love him.  She’s half-afraid that he’ll turn around and she’ll see that brand on his forehead, that he’ll be Tranquil.

“You could have told me,” she says, fighting tears that threaten to choke up her voice.  He shakes his head, and she hears the unshed tears in _his_ voice when he replies, which isn’t fair, because _he_ isn’t the one who has to decide what to do with the one he loves being a murderer.  He can’t cry, because then she’ll lose herself, and she has only ever cried in front of him and Varric.  Nobody else has seen it, and nobody else will ever be able to.  “I would have understood.”

“I couldn’t,” he replies, “What if you had tried to stop me – or what if you had wanted to _help_?  I couldn’t let you do that.”

Hawke’s heart thuds in her chest, and she can hear the rush of blood in her ears.  She wants to pull him to his feet and run with him, two mages who will single-handedly change the world.  What he did was _wrong_ , incredibly so, but she has never been able to fault him for how he attempts to free mages.

“I love you,” she says softly, dropping into a crouch.  She tries to imagine that he smiles at her words, but can’t quite do it.  More and more, she is convinced that she’ll have to kill him.  They both know it, know that it’s the only thing she can do.  The world will hate her if she doesn’t do it, but she’ll hate herself if she does.

“You know it’s the only way,” he says, which just makes tears spring into her eyes.  “I know you know…”

“I’m sorry.”

And she puts the knife in his back.  It slips in sickeningly easily, and Anders falls forward.  She catches him, rolling him onto his back.  His brows are drawn together over amber eyes, and yet he manages a smile as he looks up at her.  The tears fall, burning her cheeks from shame and pain.  She pulls his face to hers, pressing kisses to his face, desperate words falling from her lips, apologies and confessions and comforts.  She loves him, she’s sorry, it will be okay, she’ll always love him, she wishes she could take it back, please forgive her, she would have helped him if he’d only asked.

The life fades from him but she doesn’t notice, too caught up in crying and holding him close.  She wishes that she had been strong enough to spare him, that she had taken his hand and pulled him to his feet, dragged him behind her.

A gauntleted hand lands on her shoulder, and she pulls her face away from Anders’ body.  Fenris is standing above her, managing to look sorry despite the fact that she _knows_ Fenris wanted Anders dead.

“You did the right thing,” he says, as if that makes everything alright.  As if that pieces together her broken heart.  As if that brings him back.

Hawke wants to yell, wants to scream, wants to tell him that he’ll never know, that he _left_ her that night and she had to move on because what else was she supposed to do?  That she’s always loved Anders, but she’s always loved him, too.

But she doesn’t.  She just nods, sliding Anders’ ridiculous coat off of his body and setting him gently on the ground.  The coat is far too large, and it has a hole and bloodstains in the back from where she slipped the knife, but it still smells like him.  She slides it on – it fits over what she wears already, makes her feel smaller, even worse about what she’s done.

“Let’s go,” she says, trying to ignore Anders’ body as she ducks her head.  No need for them to see any more tears.  “There are people to help.”

\--

She knows the Inquisitor tries, but how could the noble truly understand how it feels to put a knife in the back of the man you love?  But the woman keeps _looking_ at her, and she’ll be damned if she lets those puppy dog eyes of hers get the best of her.  It’s happened too many times before.  She won’t let it happen again.  No doubt she’s read Varric’s book, and while her friend is an incredible storyteller (she cannot deny him that), not even the dwarf can understand everything that went through her mind on that fateful day.  How she was prepared to throw down the knife and run with Anders, run far away and stay beside him, how she agreed with him even though he was wrong, because he _understood._ As long as the circles stand, mages don’t have a choice.  Peace talks would get them nowhere, _have_ gotten them nowhere.  The irony that Anders’ actions in Kirkwall have led to the creation of this Inquisition are not lost on her.

Anders would have been proud if he had lived.  He would have liked Moira Trevelyan, she decides, would have enjoyed the woman’s talks of colleges for mages and choices for everyone.  But the Inquisitor’s insistence that Circles do more harm than good remind her too much of her love, send her back to those years in Kirkwall when she could not be more content than to lay in his arms until she forced herself to face the day.  They were just mages, the two of them, meant to stand for something far larger than themselves.

And of course Trevelyan chooses _this_ day to talk about Anders.  It isn’t her fault; she can’t know, can’t understand why this day scrapes Hawke raw and makes her want to curl up into that damn coat that she still keeps with her, with its ridiculous feathers that she used to make fun of.  She would give anything to be able to make fun of him like that again.  But today is the day that she killed him, that she stabbed him in the back.  It’s betrayal, no matter how much he wanted her to do it.  She knows she hasn’t been the same since.  She knows that they worry; even Fenris seems a bit less abrasive.

“Do you know what it’s like to put a knife in the back of the man you love?”

Moira doesn’t seem taken aback by this, and just smiles ruefully.  Hawke has seen the looks that Trevelyan sends Cullen’s way, the softness in her eyes when she looks at the ex-templar.  Hawke can’t quite comprehend it, not after what she’s witnessed from the Commander, but the other mage seems to adore him.  And, despite all odds, Cullen seems to be fond of the noble as well.  “My sister was a mage,” she says, “and when the Circles rebelled, she and I ran back home.  Brought trouble with us, she did.”  Moira looks down over the courtyard, and Hawke can see the pain in her eyes.  The Inquisitor is many things, but she is not good at hiding her feelings.  “She’d become a blood mage,” she whispers, “And I know that isn’t inherently bad, I’ve seen you work blood magic and that’s fine — but little Mae was possessed.  She wanted to see our family so badly, wanted _freedom_ so badly, a desire demon latched hold of her…”

She pauses, taking a shuddering breath.  Her bright blue eyes, like a summer sky, flicker closed for a moment.  Hawke rests her gaze on the woman, truly examining her for the first time.  She’s tall, for a woman, with carefully-kept short hair whose color lies somewhere between red and blond.  Moira has a pale complexion, one which makes the freckles that dot her cheeks stand out even more, and her frame is small and soft.

“I had no choice,” Moira says finally, her voice a harsh whisper.  The woman is usually so soft-spoken, so quiet; Hawke has never heard the ragged edge of despair in her tone, not like she does now.  “It was either her, or it was all of us.  So I had to put the knife in her back.  And then I had to run, because my parents looked so _afraid,_ like it was _me_ who was the abomination.  I lost my best friend that day, the only one who ever understood what I meant when I said that magic could be beautiful.  She wasn’t afraid.  And look where that led her.”

They stand in silence for another moment, and Hawke has the impression that she has been wrong about Moira.  Maybe the noblewoman with the soft features and open heart _does_ understand.

\--

When Hawke agreed to help out the Inquisition, she wasn’t expecting to end up in the Fade.  Again.  As they trudge through the green landscape (seriously, why is everything green?), even Varric seems serious.  Alistair is uncommonly quiet, his strong gaze fixed on the Black City in the (not so distant) distance.  Cole, the spirit boy that Moira seems so fond of, looks around them uneasily.  Moira herself is even paler than usual, her freckles stark against the pastiness of her complexion.  She is leaning heavily on the elven apostate – what was his name again?  Hawke can never remember.  He is the only one who seems remotely at peace with this whole endeavor, but there is concern for the Inquisitor etched on his face.

“I don’t like this,” Varric says, which perfectly sums up the feelings of the entire party.  Except the elf.

“It’s _wrong,_ ” Cole adds, “This isn’t right.  Coming back shouldn’t be… it shouldn’t be like _this._ ”

Moira fixes her bright gaze on the spirit, her eyebrows knitting together.  “Cole, are you alright?”

“It aches, stings, like during the harrowing but _worse_.  Too much at stake, can’t stop, can’t rest, must keep going…  I can’t.  It hurts too much.” The boy stares back at her, and his voice fills with realization. “You’re injured.”

The entire party comes to a stuttering halt, and turns towards the noblewoman one by one.

“Where?” the elf asks.  Moira shakes her head, trying to pull herself away from the man.

“It’s nothing, Solas,” she insists, “Just a scratch one of the Wardens gave me.”

Solas gives her a look, and Varric shakes his head.  “Bonnie, ‘just a scratch’ wouldn’t have you leaning on Chuckles like that.”

“Why do you _call_ me that?” asks the Inquisitor, exasperation creeping into her tone.  Solas lowers her to the ground, and the fact that she doesn’t resist doesn’t bode well.  There’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her eyes look glassy. 

“Isn’t that something you Marchers say?” Varric asks, his tone light despite the desperation creeping in.  The Inquisitor laughs, and then winces as Solas lifts her shirt and it catches on her wound.

“My apologies.” The apostate’s voice is soft as he speaks to Moira, his eyes trained on her skin.  “Stay still, my friend.  It will hurt less if you refrain from moving.”

Once the shirt is lifted, they can see an angry red gash on the Inquisitor’s abdomen.  Hawke’s breath catches in her throat.  Maybe it’s just the light of the Fade, but the wound looks a lot worse than it should.

“Andraste’s ass,” Varric breathes, “Just a scratch?”

Solas places his hands over the wound and Hawke is reminded of the countless times Anders did the same for her, every time she stumbled into his clinic at three in the morning with blood soaking through her clothes and her mind foggy from pain.  Solas and the Inquisitor are nothing more than friends, that much is obvious, but there is still a tender friendship between them.

“You could have just used a potion,” Moira says, using Solas to help her stand up.  Solas chuckles, shaking his head.

“Inquisitor, did you not tell us to conserve healing potions?”

“He’s got a point, Bonnie.”

The Inquisitor rolls her eyes, stretches, and then begins to walk again, her gait purposeful.  “Let’s get a move on.  I want to get out of here.”

\--

There’s a giant fucking spider, and there’s no way they’re all getting out of this alive.  The giant spider – nightmare, whatever – is probably deadly and certainly going to trap them in the Fade if someone doesn’t stay behind to fight it.  That _somebody_ being her, of course.  Alistair has to rebuild the Wardens.  Moira is the Inquisitor.  Cole has looked worse and worse as they move on.  Solas – well, she doesn’t have an excuse for him, but she feels that he can’t remain behind.  And she’ll be damned if she lets Varric stay back.

So when she says that someone needs to stay behind, and that she’ll cover their escape, she doesn’t let Moira argue.  She doesn’t let Varric argue, either.  She nods at Alistair, and though he tries to make her choose differently, she makes him take the others through. This is her fight.  She’s the Champion, right?  She’s dealt with spirits before.  Hell, her boyfriend was an abomination.

She faces off against the demon and runs towards it.

_Her and Anders, laying together in the warm bed, waking up slowly in each other’s arms.  He’s up first – he’s always up first – but she doesn’t mind.  She gets to awaken and see him smiling down at her, curled up against his chest.  She stretches languidly, reaching up to kiss him._

Her blood sprays out in a deadly arc, dealing a blow to the Nightmare.  A defiant yell escapes her throat, rage and despair and regret mixing into a deadly cocktail that fuels her fight.  She will _not_ be defeated.  This is for Moira.  This is for the world.  For the Wardens and Varric and even Cullen.

This is for _him._

_“I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation.  Why do you threaten it?”_

_The man doesn’t scream ‘Grey Warden’, but that doesn’t mean anything.  He’s tall, slim, with blond hair that is reminiscent of Varric’s.  Amber eyes meet hers, and Hawke feels her pulse quicken.  Well, shit.  And here she was hoping that she wouldn’t get attached to anyone.  She looks at Carver, who looks at Varric, and Hawke says what both she and her brother are thinking._

_“This is the Grey Warden?”_

She should have fallen already, should have run out of mana, but the Fade feeds her magic and makes her spells more powerful.  She is slowly, but surely, wearing down the Nightmare.  She’s also bleeding from various wounds.  She knows she won’t make it out of here alive.  At least, it isn’t likely.  But it isn’t like she has much to live for.  Killed her lover, lost her city, lost her friends… Fenris would be pissed at her for giving the world anything more than she already has.

_“I would drown us in blood to keep you safe.”_

_From anyone else, it might have been an exaggeration.  But this is Anders.  He isn’t lying.  He will do whatever it takes to keep her safe.  He’s her angel, but he’s an angel with a staff and powerful magic.  He will fight the entire world, will kill any and all who threaten her.  He’s a healer, but he’s a warrior, too.  She loves him for that._

_And she would do the same for him._

She’s beaten down, but she strikes the final blow and kills the creature before her wounds become too much.  She’s lying on the ground, surrounded by Nightmare bits, covered in blood, and her vision is going dark.  And that’s when she swears she sees him.

She struggles to keep her vision from going black.  He’s _there,_ she can see him, would know his silhouette anywhere.  “Anders?” she asks, her voice weak.

“No.”

She knows that voice.

_“Leave.  Anders has no need of you.”_

But why has Justice taken Anders’ form?  Is this just a way to taunt her, to get revenge for killing his host?  Is this just his way of getting justice for what she’s done?

“Why?” she asks, “Do you hate me for what I did?”

“It was justice,” Justice says simply, and then, “You wear his clothing.”

The jacket is ragged and covered in blood, but it still comforts her.  It no longer smells like Anders, but the memories it holds are worth keeping the old thing.  He’d wrapped her in this jacket on multiple occasions, had sat with her at night as she read, affixing more feathers to it.  She hasn’t put more feathers on in a long while.

“It reminds me of him.  I miss him.”                                                                                                                                        

Justice is not one for comfort, never has been, but his voice is softer than usual.  “He loved you.  Even at the end.”

Her chest tightens, but she can’t tell whether it’s from an injury or just her broken heart.  Tears are forming, but she can’t cry.  She has no more tears to cry, not for anything.

Justice picks her up from the ground, and she curls into him despite herself.  She can’t hold onto consciousness any longer – it slips away from her, releasing her into darkness.

There are tears on her cheeks.

\--

When Hawke wakes up, she isn’t in the Fade.  She’s in Skyhold, being watched over by Varric and – _Fenris_?

She doesn’t remember much from after she fell unconscious; only bits and pieces of conversation with Justice, him healing her.

Fenris looks relieved that she’s awake, and Varric lets out a watery laugh.

“You shit!” the dwarf exclaims, and then throws his arms around her, “Never do that again, you hear me?”

Suddenly, all of the tears which she hasn’t been able to shed come rushing out, and she’s crying.

“I saw him,” she says, holding Varric in a death grip, “I saw him there.  He saved me.”

“Who?” Fenris asks, and _Maker_ did she miss the soothing rumble of his voice.  Well, soothing sometimes.  Other times, she just wants to punch him for saying rude things to people.  But that’s Fenris.  He gets on her nerves, but she adores him.

“Justice,” she says, “Justice saved me.”

Fenris’ face goes hard, and he rushes away.  Pain twists in her chest, and she releases Varric.  The dwarf looks at her, and then sighs.  “I’ll go after him.”

She watches him run after the elf, and then pulls herself to her feet.  She’s weak, her legs wobbling, but she can’t lay down anymore.

“Worries twisting within like snakes, watching her sleep… will she wake up?  Why did she stay behind, why didn’t she _listen,_ why does she _always_ do this… too many years waiting for the fall to come, watching her teeter on the edge of the cliff.  Mages are evil, wrong, _weak,_ but she is stronger than any of them.  She is beautiful.  I can’t lose her.”

Cole is beside her, his head tilted downward so that his hat covers all of his face but for his mouth.  “He’s afraid,” he says, “He’s afraid to care because he thinks you don’t, because it will hurt too much to lose you.  But you care.”

Okay, what?  “I don’t understand,” she says, bringing up one hand to scrub at her face, “What do you mean?”

“You slipped the knife in his back because you thought it was right, because he hurt you and everybody else.  You thought you could forget the nights of soft sighs and promises, but you put the knife in your own heart.  It was justice, but not the justice you wanted.  You think you can’t move on, but you _can._ He would want you to.  He wouldn’t want the darkness to stay, to block out the light.  _I will drown us in blood to keep you safe_.  But he doesn’t want the blood to drown you.”

And then he’s gone, leaving Hawke alone.

Later, she stumbles upon Fenris, brooding up on Skyhold’s ramparts.  She stands beside him, and they stand in silence for a moment.

“I thought you weren’t coming back.”

She wasn’t expecting him to speak first, but tries not to be too shocked when he does.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she is.  Sorry that she ever loved Anders, sorry that she didn’t wait for Fenris after he ran, sorry that he couldn’t move on.

“I’ve told you to stop doing that,” Fenris says, and there’s anger in his voice.  Hawke can’t say that she blames him.  “Damn it, Hawke, you always do this.  One of these days, you won’t come back, and I’ll…”

He trails off, and Hawke glances at him.  In the moonlight, he looks beautiful. She can’t believe that she forgot that.

“You’ll what?” she asks.  He shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I had a talk,” she says, “And he told me that it was time to move on.  I think he’s right.”

And then she kisses him.

She won’t forget Anders, won’t stop loving him, but she never really stopped loving Fenris, either.  And Cole was right; Anders would want her to be happy.  Even if it was with a person he hated.  The world may be falling apart around them, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t find it in her to hold onto him. 

She has been drowned in blood by the man she loved, but now it is time for her to swim for the surface and fight for breath.


End file.
